Windows 8 - Looks really awsome

I know laptop sales have overtaken traditional desktop set-ups, but conventional computers, as opposed to tablets, are a necessity for many people today, rather than just an expensive novelty (or hobby).

My friend, who built my desktop for me, tells me that he is selling as many 'budget boxes' as he is laptops in his shop/store. He hasn't sold a tablet yet. In todays economic climate this is the reality that I think Microsoft has misjudged.

 

Which is just about everyone that owns a PC at this moment.

Seriously though, no one wants you to switch from a desktop PC to a tablet, they want you to throw away your perfectly fine monitor and buy a touch screen for your desktop. 2 touchscreens. AND buy a tablet as well. Several of them if possible, for every family member. Laptops too. And belonging OS licenses too. Mobile phones with gazillion useless features, 2 or 3 per person, cameras with a trillion by trillion pixels resolution, and whatnot. Buy any garbage they come up with really, just to empty your pockets as much as possible. It is going to be too late before you realize you don't actually need all those gadgets, and the quality of your life is the same (if not worse) as it was a decade or two ago, when you didn't have the gadgets. Your consumer, gadget loving brain has gotten the better of you. And, what's worse, the next year, start all over again, as NEW VERSIONS are out. Now, is there a Wilders member who can resist a "new version"?
I guess I wouldn't be far off if I say it's a conspiracy between hardware and software vendors, and against the flocks of consumers of average intelligence. And I hate conspiracy theories.

Stop this bullcrap about "improved security" tidbits on Windows 8 (and 7 for that matter), and take a look at the big picture.
It's a consumer world we live in.

 

You are now officially my hero. LOL

 

I'm not against progress Ron, far from it. But I think that you have to separate progress from marketing strategies.

Progress is when a company like SpaceX fires an (old-fashioned) rocket at the ISS with a cutting edge reusable re-entry vehicle, rather than using an ageing shuttle fleet.

Marketing strategy is when you fire an OS at the consumer which ultimately tries to redefine what hardware they are purchasing, rather than just upgrading their computing experience.

 

That's for sure.

Sorry ... just an analogy.

 

One small government branch I work for (30 people) recently did a migration to Windows Server 2008 R2/Windows 7. The employees are exclusively using some Word, a bit of Excel and mostly Outlook (and most of all Facebook, yeah!). As IT manager, I tried hard to prevent the migration, as the benefits simply didn't justify the amount of money needed for the upgrade. The general manager called me aside and told me that it's just the way the things must be. The money HAS to be spent, otherwise the financier will not give more, as his clients (Microsoft and such, I presume) will not be satisfied.
OTH, a major local newspaper I used to work for, was using exclusively QuarkXpress 5.0 for DTP. This version is from around 1998, roughly, I don't remember. I remember though that we tried to switch to version 8 at the time (circa 2007, if I'm not mistaken) and we didn't find any benefits. Compared to version 5, 8 was slow as molasses, needed a new hardware and such. We naturally dropped that idea in a single day. I believe they are still using v5. No problems, the newspaper still looks great and modern.

Now, the next year, the forementioned government branch will no doubt do a migration to Windows 8. So it's a mandatory upgrade, regardless of the benefits. Not to mention confused employees with next to 0 knowledge on using XP, let alone 7 or 8, who will also need a bit of education. This is IMO just a waste of time and resources, which can be spent on something actually productive.

 

I tried to do that, but I was slapped in the face

Luckily, yes, the upgrade from Office 2007 to 2010 was a breeze.
However, the upgrade from 2003 to 2007 was a horror story (the dreaded "ribbon" bar).

 

Agreed, on both counts....

 

As the IT Manager at a software company, I have many customers that don't see the benefits of upgrading from XP to anything else, however most of the support issues we have are with XP users, even accounting for the volume of them vs. Windows 7 (we really never did have a large number of Vista users over the last 5 years). Whether or not the benefits of an upgrade are immediately obvious, there are always good reasons to upgrade. The refusal of some of our customers to upgrade costs our company time and money.

 

I don't think that there is any good reason to upgrade if your hardware is fine & your OS is being supported by the company that released it.

The main 'benefits' of upgrading are the profits made by the company that released the software in the first place. I'm sure MS would love everyone on the planet running Windows to upgrade to Win 8.

As a huge amount of people still run XP, it wouldn't surprise me that would reflect statistically on the proportion of people needing support. In my experience hardware problems with ageing computers are more of an issue than outdated software.

I know people who make a business out of fixing old computers, quite often many machines still running XP. What is a loss to some is a profit for others.

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mi...heel-with-windows-8-2012-06-01?dist=afterbell
Well according to this article if i'm not mistaken it says we can't disable Metro permanently?

 

Of course we can't. If MS allowed that, then everyone would disable it, and that would thwart their efforts and direction....

 

Well, I enabled the NX-XD bit in my BIOS but the installer still gives me the "Your PC's CPU isn't compatible error" when I try to install on my main system. Although now I can install the windows 8 release preview inside Vmware Workstation, previoulsy it was not allowing me to install inside Vmware too. Googling will show I am not the only one afflicted with this problem. Why would Microsoft make enabling NX-XD bit a prerequisite for installing windows 8 release preview?

If someone else has encountered this problem and managed to fix it, please let me know.

 

What's wrong with only being able to run Windows apps in full screen mode? As I mentioned in my comments about my impression of Windows 8 last month in the hardware section....There are some things I kind of like about it... The simple look and feel, full screen applications, simple basic colors used...It brings back memories of how applications were run back in the 1980s for DOS using launch applications like Direct Access 5.0. If people keep complaining about the look and functionality of Windows 8 then MS should just rename "Metro" interface to "Retro" interface and rename Windows 8 to DOS 8. Problem solved.

 

How old is your system?

 

I am assuming this question was directed at me? My CPU is Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2 GHz/2.2GHz processor. It is fairly new and above the minimum specs for windows 8. Others whose computers were happily running the windows 8 consumer preview have also reported the same error with windows 8 release preview. Suddenly their CPU's are not compatible.

 

Which one? I have about ten of them. A new Mac with OSX Lion and VM for whatever OS I want to run and the rest are Windows XP Pro 7-10 years old. All I need is a good browser for DOS 6.22 and I will go retro in no time...or I can just start up the Windows 8 preview VM on my Mac.

Raza0007, I also answered the question but I am now certain it was directed at you.

 

Oh damnit, i think my only problem with Metro at the end is not the looks but it lacks the file management system, i mean, everytime i want to copy/paste/create/move files i'll have to launch explorer.exe . . . is that right?

Same with Android, that's something i don't like about Android but i don't care really that much because it's just a gizmo/gadgetry for me.

 

Windows 8 has me looking forward to Windows 9 in the same way Vista experimentalists were excited by the prospect of Windows 7. For Windows 10 MS could streamline more the bloat out of the OS and go retro with the name while taking a page from Apple's use of cat themes. Call it DOS-X Chihuahua.

 

Web browsing in Windows 8 Release Preview with IE10

 

"There is an old-fashioned desktop you can visit, but whenever the OS gets the chance, it throws you back onto the Metro interface. For those of us who thought we could avoid Metro and live on the desktop screen, we are going to be sorely disappointed." ~ op cit

"The potential for this OS to be an unrecoverable disaster for the company is at the highest possible level I’ve ever seen." ~ op cit

How long d'ya reckon it will be before Microsoft do a U-turn on all of this? Three months after release? Six months? Never?

 

Never. And by next year the complaining will have stopped.